Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst commissioners will have to abide by certain APS values and statutory values, I'd like us to be mindful of the precedent that we saw occur over the last decade with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which the government agreed had been stacked. People had not been independently appointed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and, as a result, the government themselves abolished the Administrative Appeals Tribunal—something which has cost taxpayers in this country tens of millions of dollars to do. In light of that precedent and in light of that example, why are we still neglecting that example—the fact that people were not appointed independently to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal? The government felt the need to abolish that at a cost of millions and millions of dollars to our taxpayers. It eroded trust in that very important democratic institution. I would like to know why we are still not learning the lessons of that time and independently appointing people to such an important body as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.

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